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Workshops

The workshop aims to bring together researchers using different approaches in order to discuss design cognition of the built environment. Currently, various techniques and tools are being used for analyzing and simulating how individuals interact with their environment, either through linking the structure of the environment with user behavior (space syntax methods), or by simulating different levels of human cognition using automated sensorimotor systems (agent-based methods). The analysis of how individuals and groups use the built environment feeds directly into evidence-based design. Both virtual and real world experiments can be used, as well as hybrid environments, which combine elements of both. The ability to run virtual agents through models of the environment allows for an in-depth analysis of how people might move around such a space in the real world. The level and nature of the cognitive input that such agents might have is a matter for debate, which the workshop will address.

The focus of this hands-on and interactive workshop is intense discussion of indoor wayfinding assistance systems in the light of architectural particularities, signage, wayfinding situations, and tasks. A major goal of our workshop is the collection of a joint public corpus of buildings and spatial layouts that are difficult to navigate, use cases for real-world wayfinding problems, and sketched solutions.
The workshop calls for contributions in the form of reports on buildings/indoor spaces that are difficult to navigate due to architectural complexity, unsufficient signage, or any other particularities. The report should contain photos and a short description about possible problems for wayfinding. During the workshop we will discuss the contributions with respect to technical or non-technical solutions of the contributed situations. In addition we will make an excursion to an infamous building on campus (GW2/Geisteswissenschaften 2) to gain in-situ experience and to discuss the identified problematic situations and potential solutions.
This workshop is open to everybody interested in wayfinding issues in indoor environments.